I think you misunderstand the concept of practice, John.
I remember a gymnastics session in high school phys ed. For many of the techniques, we put on a belt which was secured to two ropes, each of which was held by a spotter. If we erred, we were hopefully caught so that no serious injury would occur.
Similarly, when the Architect set about teaching himself to walk a tightrope, he set up a net beneath the rope so that if he slipped he would land unharmed in the net.
I notice that when gymnasts actually compete, there are no ropes attached to their belts; and when a ninja crosses between the roofs of high buildings on a tightrope, there is no net to catch him.
Practice is about doing this move in a completely controlled and safe environment. Doing it in the real world is different; the safeties are off.
And the fear of the botch is supposed to have that affect on you. You are supposed to hesitate, to ask whether there is a safer way to do this, to take precautions against whatever might go wrong. These crazy and dangerous powers you're developing--particularly when they are at amateur levels--should give you pause.
That's part of why we have botches in Multiverser.
In Dungeons & Dragons, grandfather of all role playing games, the limitation on magic was always that once you cast it you cannot cast it again until you have sufficient "down time" to relearn it. The limitation on psionics in that game was that you have a pool of points that you spent, and when you had spent them all you were powerless. Many role playing games use these models to limit the use of magic an psionics in play. Multiverser does not. Multiverser rather uses the chance of failure and the chance to botch. The chance of failure means that if you've got a 50% chance to hit this guy twice in a minute with the knife on your belt and a 30% chance to hit him once a minute with the blade you're going to conjure out of mental power, you'll use the real knife when it matters, and the other when you're forced to it or you figure you can improve your skill with it by practicing. The chance to botch means that if you might give yourself a blinding headache by using this force blade instead of a kitchen knife to cut your vegetables, you'll probably use the kitchen knife, even though you've got a chance of cutting your finger with it.
You're supposed to be considering the odds, the factors of what works and what doesn't, what's reliable and what's dangerous. You do that in real life. You assess whether to run across the highway dodging traffic or to walk to the crossway to avoid it, partly based on whether you think the one is too dangerous or the other too time consuming. You try to choose the way of doing everything that is most effective, but that includes minimizing risk.
I don't think that the person who has done the flip a thousand times with the safety belt in place feels no trepidation about attempting to do it in the competition. I don't think that the one who practiced walking the tightrope three feet above the safety net feels no trepidation about doing it thirty stories above the pavement. That's what the botch chance gives you: the perspective your character has, that this is much more dangerous in reality than it is in practice.
--M. J. Young
